10.24.2007

My Mom's 16 Magazine Collection

My Mom was a big fan of The Beatles, right at the height of their popularity, from 1964 to 1966. (Remember, she wrote this previously.) She had a big collection of teeny-bop magazines that featured all the big hot movie, tv and music hearthrobs at the time. She would only buy the ones that had anything to do with The Beatles, most importantly Paul. She was a big fan of Paul.

Growing up, I remember digging these 16 Magazines out of the closet and checking out all the covers, studying in detail all the fun and kooky cartoon activity going on. Big source of influence for me right here, folks. Loved how all the run-of-the-mill press photos were transformed into brand new scenarios by ingenious positioning and pasting. I really admired the artist who worked on these covers -- I could tell that they had to work with only what was available, and that inspired me.

(Oh, and if you like more of this type of stuff, then The Retro Teen is your bag, baby.)

Mom had some other publications in her collection, mostly one-shot deals that were basically 'special issues' from 16 Magazine or Photoplay. Here's one specializing in the Great Debate of 1964: Who's better -- The Dave Clark 5 or The Beatles? Oh, the world must know!

This next one is my favorite. It's my Mom's notebook that has been stuffed with newspaper clippings on the Fab Four. The band played one of their last live shows in Atlanta in 1965 and my Mom was there. There's lots of clippings about that event in here:

Thanks, Mom, for being a teenager and being so passionate over four mop-tops from Britain. And thanks for keeping these fun & silly magazines around the house as a souvenir so that they may become a big influence on my creative upbringing. You never know what will influence young, budding artists.

13 comments:

these are just great...and it's great to read about how they influenced you. "kooky" is a perfect description for these haha! i recently posted about Ed Emberley on my blog. he was a big influence on me...still is.cheers!

I love this. Got in trouble doing a Junior High School "Composite" in this manner, around 1975. (they gave me the photo heads of kids in the school, and I drew a scene for them, But I was a little too oddball for their tastes, and it never saw the light of day)

Say Hi to your mom for me, just from another old beatles fan. i have many of the mags you showed and many, I mean many, more! I have rare brittish publications, life and look mag's for the months they (Beatles) were featured, Dig mag, hit parade, top picks mag, and the list goes on and on. great times...